Recent reviews by Greene

A lot of people describe it as a CS:GO, and TF2 mix. You have the variety, different classes, and arena-style combat from TF2, and "competititve" gunplay from CS:GO. That being said, I think that the competitive-side of CS:GO comes from the skill curve it takes to learn the recoil patterns, maps, and other mechanics that differentiates it from games such as BF or COD where situational-awareness strongly dictates the "best" players.

In Dirty Bomb, gunplay is very accurate, and TTK is very low when mastered which is why some would call it a mixture of TF2 and CS:GO.

Is this game P2W? A bit.

The "dirty" part of the game is that although it claims to be in open access beta, it has a cash shop that allows you permamently unlock certain mercenaries that are very strong counters (if not all-round strong) to other classes, and puts F2P players at certain disadvantages. This has been incredibly evident recently with the release of the newest merc, the "Phantom" which people have complained about due it's tanky health, near-instant kill mechcanics, and cloak (and because only people who have the in-game currency or cash to unlock it, most F2P players are unhappy with this update).

If you are a F2P player, you can definitely catch up to a P2P player with the in-game currency, which can unlock mercs the same way real-life money can, and buy/gamble cards to play with.

However, character progression is simple, there are 3 "types" of cards. You have Lead, Iron, and Bronze+. Each of these types of cards are direct improvement over the other, but the improvements are small perks such as quicker reloads or faster recharge times. While you can definitely pay to go straight to bronze, it doesn't take very long to get bronze cards when you trade-up your cards (which is generally what you need to reach the "highest" possible point for your merc, putting aside the randomization factor of gambling for your loadout cards). In addition, any card above bronze is simply a cosmetic for flair and bling.

So technically, you could pay for convenience and get everything you want/need (pay to unlock all the mercs, and pay to gamble for the cards you want), but it's designed so that it would likely require great monetary investments to get what you want (the gambling system)

The game hashad a shaky future ahead of it ever since the release of the Phantom, which has made the gap between paying to unlock and playing to unlock strikingly clear, and the way that the developers respond to it will tell us whether or not this game is worth investing the time into for the future (as in, the path Combat Arms went with releasing slightly better weapons every update to bleed the consumers dry, or like other games, where they continually release OP items, then nerf later down the road).